I haven’t looked around much, but from my experience every time server gets out of maintenance ICe belts spawn on the exact same systems, in a different location yeah but same system non stop. Now if it spawns elsewhere I do not know, most of the time exploring High Sec at night I can’t find any.

Max playercounts were something we did question in the summit, but the reasoning behind it was sound, and obvious effort had been put in to make sure that it was not a safe space to PvE, with the fact that gates were used, alongside the necessity to move from system to system.

The ready-fit ships are mostly being used as a continuation of the tutorial system in order to introduce newer players to the next level of their race’s ship line and provide some idea of what they do, whilst retaining the fun that can be found in adapting and upgrading a ship over time (something that tests very well with new players).

The ‘special purpose’ system is so that rewards can be managed independently of other systems and I don’t really see why this is a problem - mission standings are also a special purpose system, as are FW levels and FW missions.

As to why FW hasn’t been adjusted, that’s something we’ve talked to them about, the key problem is that it’s not in a good state for newer players and to get it in a good state will take a significantly larger amount of time than creating Resource Wars, which also appeal to a much larger section of the potential playerbase. Resource Wars are also fairly unique in that they encourage social gameplay in newer players, which is something that the game sorely lacks, and will help these newer players find a place within groups that will help them to explore other aspects of the game (ideally).

I know that’s not what you want to hear re: FW, and honestly it’s not what I’d like either, but I understand the prioritisation here from CCP, which is to make sure they retain more of the incoming players over working on something that - currently at least - is mostly used by a small number of enfranchised players, especially given that a large % of new players aren’t interested in PvP until they have found their feet in terms of income streams.

The primary intent was to keep it contained for technical reasons and to stop it from being able to be insta-completed, which would turn Resource Wars into a potentially massive min/LP/etc. farm that could be used to move (potentially) infinite amounts of minerals easily around the cluster, which would also take away sites from newer players.

Beyond that, it allowed the content to be better tailored for a smaller section of people, helped to hopefully prevent leeching, and took away the problems of “contesting” that we see in Incursions which they didn’t want to have to handle in something that is very directly aimed at the Lvl 1-3 mission running ‘gap’.

In order to counteract the safety that this provided, they used a gated system so there would be a very specific and easily campable warp in for those wishing to gank (compare this to missions, for example), alongside making the deadspace drop quickly after site completion to allow the potential for warp-ins post completion, and forcing movement between systems to find new sites. Obviously, it is still ‘safer’ in some regards, but the fact that CCP had thought directly about the options they were giving to gankers is something I’m very happy to see.

The main thing I (and the CSM) will be looking for is the overall wealth generation that these things provide. We were given a benchmark of “below level 4’s” and we think that’s a healthy risk/reward balance for them. If that ends up not being the case as people learn to blitz them, then we’ll likely have to reconsider our positions.

with things like incursions you just boot them from your fleet and they get ■■■■ all, you don’t need fleets for resource wars if i’ve understood the information so far correctly. that means you can’t stop some one being rewarded and thus will encourage them (aka me, cos i’m a lazy git) to leech the hell out of sites.

Jin_taan:

The primary intent was to keep it contained for technical reasons and to stop it from being able to be insta-completed

which could’ve been done with like, a minimum site timer. “fill the haulers and protect them until they are able to extract from the site” boom - impossible to insta complete and no need for a player cap.

i’m literally coming up to better solutions off the cuff, and ccp have dedicated people’s paid time to this… c’mon man.

Jin_taan:

took away the problems of “contesting” that we see in Incursions which they didn’t want to have to handle in something that is very directly aimed at the Lvl 1-3 mission running ‘gap’.

fair - i don’t have an off the cuff solution to this. equally though, i don’t particularly think it’s a problem anyway. the rewards at the lower level sites are going to be garbage, nobody’s going to be contesting you for them (even more so when they probably won’t be able to enter in their bigger ships). the ship size restrictions and lower rewards pretty much already solve this, i’d imagine. couple this with a minimum site timer and it’s just inefficient to contest anything but the highest level sites.

Jin_taan:

If that ends up not being the case as people learn to blitz them, then we’ll likely have to reconsider our positions.

i’m doing a level 4/5 site as i type this out (they seem to have the same layout but the only real difference is the number of friendly npcs and ore requirements) the orca spawns are complete garbage so blitzing anything in slow ass exhumers is going to be a challenge.

In order to counteract the safety that this provided, they used a gated system so there would be a very specific and easily campable warp in for those wishing to gank (compare this to missions, for example), alongside making the deadspace drop quickly after site completion to allow the potential for warp-ins post completion, and forcing movement between systems to find new sites. Obviously, it is still ‘safer’ in some regards, but the fact that CCP had thought directly about the options they were giving to gankers is something I’m very happy to see.

While these sites are indeed very safe from criminals, they are not perfectly safe and their short time span and the fact that they will require people to move frequently arguably makes them more dangerous than some of the other PvE options in the game like missions which feature gated deadspace where players can grind for long times in near perfect safety. I have no concerns that this adds too much safety to the game and reaffirms my belief that CCP still is developing the same competitive game they started out to build so long ago.

My only concern with these things is with the rewards. I completely understand the rationale, but pre-built ships and modules directly undermines the reasons for people to play the game as industrialists and something I find distasteful in a supposed player-driven economic game. If they prove too lucrative, they will be exploited and farmed by multi-boxing veteran players killing the reason for other players, especially budding industrialists who might want to start with T1 items and ships, to play they game. I trust you will hold CCP’s feet to the fire and make sure these things don’t become the go to place for established players to farm highsec flooding such a corrosive reward onto the markets of New Eden.

but I understand the prioritisation here from CCP, which is to make sure they retain more of the incoming players over working on something that - currently at least - is mostly used by a small number of enfranchised players, especially given that a large % of new players aren’t interested in PvP until they have found their feet in terms of income streams.

The Resource Wars may retain more players, but players who like the Resource Wars. IMO this makes the problem even worse, as RW is the opposite of what EvE is. Does CCP really think just keeping new players longer in this illusion, helps them with accepting and interacting with the sandbox later?

The only way I see how this can pay off, means, cutting down more and more of the sandbox, and this concerns me.

I agree with you, but in this case I think the design of RW is not “bad”. It follows the purpose to retain more new players, players who are not interested in PvP (in the broad sense) and not capable of finding and carving their own way, essentially by shielding them from those aspects of the game. If this is the only way to retain them …

they used a gated system so there would be a very specific and easily campable

How are -10 expected to sit there and wait? Does the faction police not spawn? is it possible to create bookmarks, so they can bounce around? it appears that the devs made it possible to gank, but in practise that does not seem to be the case for anyone who’s already a ganker and below -5.

Yeah, of these i know. they’re not really a solution, though. anyone proud of his sec won’t do it. they’d likely rather use alts to bump ships off the initial gate, before they warp in. it’s also a rather costly thing in the long run, which will make people create new ganking chars rather than tagging up the sec, because that’s cheaper. the new alpha changes will help with that.

it feels more like that they’ve put this in so they can say “look, we thought about you as well”.

Faction police can be tanked. Faction police can be killed.
Gankers used to do it all the time in the olden days, and the faction police haven’t changed.
It’s just not as perfect an isk/hour return if you use larger high DPS ships instead of Gankalysts